Wearing The Skin Of A Shinobi Part One
by Tactition101
Summary: I'm not sure whether I actually died or if this is just my brain keeping me busy during my coma. Either way, I don't intend to get a low score again.
1. Chapter 1

Wearing the Skin Of A Shinobi Part One

Summary: I don't know if I actually died or if I'm just stuck in a coma and this is my mind's way of passing the time. Either way, I don't intend on getting a low score.

Special Note: This is the start of a Gamer Reincarnation fic series, planned to cover three Naruto worlds, three One Piece worlds, three Harry Potter worlds, one Bleach world, one Percy Jackson and the Olympians world, one Transformers Prime world, and maybe a few others, not necessarily in that order. Be ready for a LONG journey ahead.

1\. Game Menu

Story Start: Our Universe, The Near Future

The area around me was a mess. A blown-out tire from the front of a semi had caused it to careen out of control, taking out five different cars within the first five seconds of the accident and it had only gotten worse from there. I was on the tail end of the first twenty seconds and thanks to my pretty good reflexes had somehow managed to put my little Ford Ranger into a tail spin so that the back end had gotten crumpled and not me. Once my head had stopped ringing, I quickly got out of the cab from the passenger side and scrabbled to the side of the road, glad that I tended to stay in the fast lane whenever I went on freeways and highways simply on principle.

Screeching tires drew my attention as yet another car couldn't stop in time and I saw the mini-van slam into one of the already crumpled wrecks. Seeing the flames that started in both vehicles, I cursed before I rushed back to my truck's still open cab and flipped the back of the passenger seat forward to expose the small fire extinguisher and wonder-bar (mini crowbar) behind the seat. Grabbing both, I quickly rushed over and pulled the pin on the extinguisher, dousing the flames in its foam. Imminent explosions diverted, I helped the passengers get out of the cars only to discover that the driver of the car the mini-van had hit had his leg pinned under twisted metal. Thanking my foresight to grab the wonder-bar, I began prying the metal away from his leg, adrenalin aiding my already not so unimpressive strength and after about thirty seconds, the driver was just able to get his leg out. I had just enough time to wince at the mangled look of his ankle before I threw his left arm over my shoulder and began making my way back to the side of the road.

We were just beginning to pass the hood of my truck when yet again I heard tires screeching and I saw another car squealing as it came towards us too fast to stop. Tossing the driver the last few feet to the side of the road, I made to jump as well only to get hit by the car in the area of the driver side headlight, the force of the impact pinning me into the hood of my truck and causing my head to slam into the side of my truck directly above the wheel well and darkness filled my vision.

Scene Change: Unknown Place

Game Over

I blinked at the red glowing words that hung over me, those two words being the only thing visible in the darkness around me. Seeing nothing else to do, I slowly reached up and tapped the letters. They blinked out before they were replaced with more letters, these ones glowing a blueish white.

Final Scores

Number of grades passed: 12 x 10 = 120+ Four Years College = 160

Failed Scholar (School was really not your thing) = -50

Blood Donor – 11 years x 20 = 220

Wannabe Warrior's Have No Roll Call (Strongly considered joining the armed forces but in the end failed to actually follow through) = -50

Construction Worker: 10 years x 15 = 150

Night Shift Maintenance Worker: Seven years x 10 = 70

Heroic End: 150

Final Score: 650, Ranking: Mediocre

I frowned at some of the words in front of me but shook it from my thoughts when the words once more faded away and more words this time in green appeared.

New Game? Y/N

I tapped the Y option and the words once more disappeared before a grid of soft white light formed around me in a full circle and various one foot tall icons filled into the spaces. It reminded me of the grid view of games and other programs on my 3DS XL and my eyes roamed over them, putting most likely meanings to some while most of the others I could not begin to guess at their meaning. Seeing an icon on my right that was made out of two crossed kunai and the marking for Shinobi that the Five Allied villages used in the tail end of the Naruto series, I tapped it and the grid faded away as the icon shot around to the front before expanding outwards and the words Shinobi of the Elemental Nations with three empty slots hanging below it and an arrow to the side most likely showing there were more slots available the next screen over.

Raising an eyebrow, I thought to myself 'Interesting how it says Shinobi of the Elemental Nations rather than something a bit more specific.' Hitting the circle with an i in it that was just above the empty slots, I saw a quick info screen pop up that said Choose your village and do your best to survive in the world of Shinobi. "Well that's not ominous at all." I muttered to myself with a huff as I closed the screen.

Staring at the three save slots in thought for a moment, I shrugged and said "Ah, why the hell not?" Tapping the first save slot, it blinked once before a standard selection sound effect sounded and the 'world' around me whited out only to be replace with a 'world map' of the Elemental Nations, several icons of Shinobi Villages that I both recognized and didn't taking a spot in most of the countries. Choose your village hung over the map in orange of all colors.

My eyes darted over the various countries with a frown as I muttered to myself "Do I want to be part of one of the Great Five where things are likely to be really messy or play it relatively safe with a smaller village? Decisions, decisions." Giving a shrug, I said "Meh, might as well stick with what I'm familiar with."

That said, I tapped on the leaf symbol and the world map faded as the words Choose your time period appeared. I took a glance through them and said "Huh, Naruto and Boruto's times are faded out." I tapped the former and an alert popped up that said Insufficient achievement points, please play an earlier time period first.

"Okaaay." I said before I quickly selected the time period directly before them. NO WAY was I going to go through the warring clan era or the first Hokage's reign. I had read horror stories about the first and I would probably be stupidly tempted to have a crack at Madara by myself if I got seemingly strong enough. And the less said about what I might try to do during the time period of the Sage of Six Paths the better. Besides, being able to have three seal masters around to help me with some of the ideas I have had about how to use sealing for a while now was just too good an opportunity to pass up.

The screen once more changed and in purple were the words Is your character a boy or a girl? I tapped the male silhouette that appeared under it and the words change to blue as they continued Choose your three skills. A rather long list of skills followed. Some were obvious, others not so much, from dojutsu to various kinetics, to straight out Assassin Creed DNA biofeedback allowing you to bring shades of your ancestors out to fight with you. (That one unfortunately was blanked out requiring a Legendary complete score of three thousand or more, shame.) A large number of skills were blanked out, either my final points hadn't been high enough (Which was unfair since I wasn't the Gamer before the pile up), or they were ladder skills, requiring basic skills to have been chosen first before they could be chosen. After about ten minutes, I had a much shorter list of skills to choose from.

Chakra Regen, LV One: Regenerate five percent of chakra capacity every minute

Poison Resistance LV One: Poisons are twenty five percent less effective

Genjutsu Resistance LV One: Genjutsu are twenty five percent less effective

Seal Enthusiast: Sealing is five times easier to learn

Dead Eye: All projectile weapons hit where you aim

Weapon Student: Twenty five percent easier to learn how to use a weapon

Will of Fire LV One: Fire Style Techniques are twenty five percent stronger and easier to learn

Wind Talker LV One: Wind Style Techniques are twenty five percent stronger and easier to learn

Water Lover LV One: Water Style Techniques are twenty five percent stronger and easier to learn

One with the Earth LV One: Earth Style Techniques are twenty five percent stronger and easier to learn

Lightning Enthusiast LV One: Lightning Style Techniques are twenty five percent stronger and easier to learn

I studied the list for a bit before I tapped Seal Enthusiast, Weapon Student, and Wind Talker, the three selections gaining circles around their words as I did. A pop up box appeared over the words with green words saying Is this your final choice? y/n and I tapped the y option.

The screen faded out before being replaced with a bunch of slider bars that contained various colors and numbers, titles for hair color and other descriptions on the left side. I decided to go with brown hair and hetero-chromatic eyes, one blue and one green, along with the 'slightly tall' option of final growth spurt ending at six foot two inches, two inches more than I was when the car accident happened since I figured the longer reach would be very helpful in a world of fighting but didn't want to be a giant among men since an extremely long reach could be just as deadly against the user as against the target.

The next window held a keyboard with the black words Choose your name hanging over the spot that the function keys should have been. I considered the question for a while, before I typed in Daisuke (Davis) Kinomoto and pushed enter. The same selection sound effect from before played and a countdown from 5 replaced the keyboard before the world whited out.


	2. Chapter 2

2\. Getting Settled In

Story Start: 'Four Years In'

It's been roughly a year now since I've become what I termed 'aware', and I can honestly say that I'm glad I wasn't awake for the first three years. I did NOT want to know what breast feeding was like, thank you very much! And the less said about how humiliating it would have been having to go through potty training again the better, to say nothing about the goop that adults try to pass off as baby food. Personally though, the best part to skip in my mind was having to 'learn' a new language from immersion alone and no English to whatever the hell they would call this language if there were other languages translation dictionaries. I had literally failed high school Spanish TWICE, if I had to learn this language the 'normal' way then I'm pretty sure I'd be examined for a mental deficiency by the time I was five.

 _Moving on_ , it turns out I wasn't actually an orphan in this game/world like I at first thought when I was choosing my new 'character'. I had two mothers and a 'genetic donor'. Yeah, surprised me too when I worked out two days in that my parents were on the same team. Apparently the two had roped their male teammate into having a really fun night with the both of them for a straight week before they stopped when my birthing mother, Gina (Clearly a nickname for the 'perma-dyed' silver streaks in her waist length hair that she kept in a braid pretty much twenty-four seven) came up positive with me. _That_ had been an interesting conversation when I had oh so innocently asked why I had two mommies, it seemed neither of my mothers cared for sugar coating things for their son. Said donor had done a spit take when I asked him if he had fun during that week. (I couldn't help myself from playing the innocent child again just to see how he would react.) While I was just about dying inside my own head from my laughter, the two women in the room with us just about did so on the outside, my other mother, Kasumi, was actually banging on the floor as she laughed. Tai, my biological father was pouting for HOURS which only set the two women off again at random intervals.

The last person who was allowed inside my mothers' apartment without too much suspicion, they all were shinobi after all, was their sensei, a practically ancient by shinobi standards fifty-year-old man named Daisuke with an absolutely BRUTAL looking burn scar over the right side of his face that made Zuko's from Avatar look like a mere cooking accident by comparison. The burn started just over the lip and went all the way past his hairline stopping a couple of inches from the top of his head and went just past his ear that looked more like someone had tried to deep fry the thing than an actual appendage. The man actually had an eye patch that had been sealed the ever-loving hell out of by Jiraiya himself in order to still be able to 'see' out of his right side. Apparently, he got the injury when doing a mission with the then very young Gennin and the man had made it for him in the field behind enemy lines after stealing the darn thing from the closest store that sold them, which just made it even more impressive in my mind. It apparently had a few cool tricks that Jiraiya had added over time as he got better. Surprisingly enough the man could still hear out of his ear thanks to a tricky operation the Leaf's then at the time Head Surgeon had provided.

I suppose I should go a little deeper in my explanations of my new family. Gina's actual name was Tsukiko, named after the full moon she was born after. She was the weapons expert of their team, being fluent in both two sword and nodachi style combat for swords and one of the best damn trick shooters when it came to kunai. Oddly enough, she was merely 'above average' when it came to shuriken so obviously preferred the throwing knives over the ninja stars. She was also fairly proficient with a rope dart that had an extremely elastic like cord that would stretch or retract based on how she manipulated her chakra in it. Appearance wise, besides the aforementioned silver streaks in her waist length when braided brown hair she was fairly nondescript in that 'pretty girl next door' kind of way. Average height for the population, breast size was nothing too right about, small or large wise, they just 'fit' with her body type and she had storm grey eyes with a single speck of green in her right eye that you had to be really close to see, and I mean being talking literally face to face or about to kiss the other person close.

Kasumi's black hair might have only reached the top of her mid back, but that was because she kept in in a braid like her wife and apparently decided to match her with perma-dyed blue streaks in her own, a slightly different shade for each streak which must have taken FOREVER to do. She was about half an inch taller than Gina and was the team's ninjutsu expert, high water affinity (As cliché as that was with her name), a just as good trained secondary for earth and at least ten jutsu of various levels each for the other three Elemental types. For a weapon choice she had a nine section chain whip that she could flow her water chakra into to make it do some truly impressive tricks.

Tai was the trap-master of the group. From what I could gather he was the current record holder for top grades in the trap making section of the Academy curriculum and was infamous for once having replicated Uchiha Madara's paperclip and lemon trap during the third part of their first Chunnin exam against a Waterfall Kunoichi. (And I could not BELIEVE that particular trap was an actual thing here.) The guy was actually rather short for a guy, being only about five-one but that didn't stop him from being able to take down a guy three times his size with those trapped scrolls he carried in x-crossed bandoleers over his chest. Like the girls, he had also dyed his hair but only had a single green stripe in his blue hair that he kept cut close to his scalp in the next level above a jar head cut. (Yay for anime colors being a real thing here.) More interesting to me though was the fact that he was heterochromatic, his right eye was green and his left was an extremely startling shade of bright blue.

Like expected for an ancient for his profession shinobi, Daisuke was considered a jack of all trades. His primary focus was in ninjutsu but he knew plenty of ken, gen, iryo, and just a dash of fuinjutsu. His weapon of choice was a pair of tonfas that had retractable blades on the ends. According to what Kasumi had told me once, the blades rarely came out but when they did, watch the hell out because it was a sign that Daisuke REALLY wanted you dead. Daisuke was a relatively tall man when compared to Tai, being five foot nine and had a runner's build. Like his male student, he kept what was left of his black hair closely shaved and his yellow eye was just a slit pupil away from being mistaken for a bird of prey's.

Right now said eye was intently studying me as I stood in front of the man. Daisuke was currently crouched while studying my chakra with his eyepatch, determining what, if any yet, elemental affinity I had. After I had declared that I wanted to be a shinobi like them, all four shinobi of our little family were determined that I would have at least one element that I could perform a jutsu for before the Academy, even if it was just the measly campfire starter jutsu. Personally, I was hoping for Wind since I had chosen Wind Talker for one of my skills. It wasn't a sure thing though since Gina and Tai's primary elements were the much more common Fire. When my namesake let out a hum of intrigue though, I couldn't help the minor fist pump in my mind as he said "Well that's interesting, the little guy's got just the slightest bit of wind mixed into his chakra system right now. Give it a year of training and I bet you it'll be at least three times as strong as any other elements he develops.

"Wind? Where'd he get wind from, neither of us have that." Tai said as he knelt down in front of me and examined me like his own eyes could see my chakra and thus get his answer for him.

"A shinobi's primary isn't _always_ determined by family you know." Daisuke said even as he pulled out a small book titled "Elemental Manipulation for Beginners" and began flipping through it as he continued "Though Wind is definitely a surprise, the only place where that is really common is in surprise, surprise, the Land of Wind. Even Lightning is more common here than that one." Reaching the area he wanted, Daisuke put the book down before pulling out a mostly blank piece of paper and set it on top. The seal on the top right corner of the page flashed once before the rest of the sheet filled in with a copy of the book page and Daisuke stood up with the book and page, pocketing the book and handing the page to Gina as he said "Here's what you need to get the kid started once you've had him unlock his chakra coils."

Gina took the page with a nod, giving it a brief look over before walking into the kitchen and sticking it to the fridge with a magnet. As she did that, Kasumi clapped her hands once and said "Well now that that's out of the way, what should we start with? Personally I'm hoping we can start with chakra control exercises.

Gina ignored Tai's muttered "You would." And said "Whoa there, rip tide, we've gotta help him unlock his chakra first before we get him to spinning leaves. Besides, shouldn't we do something a little easier to start with, like learning how to properly hold and throw a kunai?"

"You're only saying that because you're a trick shot with those things." Kasumi said sticking her tongue out at her wife playfully.

As the two started good naturally bickering, Daisuke rolled his eye and said "Annnd there they go again. Come on kid, I'll show you a few basic stretching exercises that you should do every day before you start doing anything else."

"Hai sensei!" I said giving my two mothers an amused look even as we walked out of the apartment and made our way down to the building's back yard, Tai following with a chuckle.

Time Skip: Two Months Later, Team 5's Training Ground

Three thuds quickly sounded out one after the other. I studied the kunai that had just barely dug into the target before falling out to the ground with a pout. Crouching beside me, Gina chuckled as she ruffled my hair and said "Hey, don't worry Davis, you'll get strong enough to have them stay in the target soon enough, and look, you were able to get two of them into the second ring to boot!"

"Accuracy doesn't do a person any good if their weapon barely scratches the skin." I pointed out as I walked over to the kunai and picked them up before walking back over to my starting point.

"And you're not expected to be able to perform kill shots for several more years yet, especially since it's still two years before it's time for you to enter the Academy." Gina countered.

"True, but I really wish I didn't feel like I was using kunai made out of wood instead of metal." I said with another pout even as I readied myself to throw my kunai again.

"You only started a week ago kid, give your arms some time to grow some muscles." Tai said before he began laughing his head off as Kasumi tripped one of the traps in his obstacle course and began cursing up a storm as the green paint covered her from the stomach down. Daisuke let out a chuckle as well at the sight before looking back down at the advanced medical text on obscure poisons he was reading.

It had surprised me that Team 5 all still used the same training ground together since all four were Jounin. However, you could apparently rent out the training grounds per month if they weren't assigned to a gennin team and so the group always rented one for a full year which was the upper limit you could rent one for, at the cost of being responsible for any and all area repairs. It gave them a proper meeting place outside of the Jounnin lounge or restaurants and it allowed Tai to set up proper long term trap fields without worrying about some, in his words, snot nosed rookies getting caught in them.

Gina gave her wife an amused look before she turned back to me and said "Alright Davis, one last time and then we'll start chakra meditation."

I nodded and threw my first kunai even as I once more noted how lucky it was that I had a shinobi family rather than a civilian one, or even worse, was an orphan. None of them may have belonged to a clan but I sure as heck would be nowhere near this point when I first started attending the Academy, never mind the point where I'll be in a couple of years. Seeing the kunai hit the third ring, I dropped all other thoughts and tightened my focus as I threw my second kunai. I could spend time being philosophical later, right now it was time to train.

Time Skip: One Year Later

I let out a groan as I dropped my fine tipped brush into its holder and began massaging my right hand. When I had chosen Seal Enthusiast, I had failed to take into account just how much work into calligraphy would go into it, and boy was I paying for not being prepared for writing practice. In my first life, my hand writing had been so bad that at the private school I went to for the first two years of my high school I had been given an extremely basic lap top that had only a word processor and solitaire for note taking. My hand writing didn't get any better after school and it seemed to have transferred over to this one.

Daisuke's solution to my terrible calligraphy skills? About ten work books worth of training paper that I had to properly trace and if I got one line out of place on any of them, he'd wipe them all and I'd have to start again. That was a week ago, and apparently there were even more if the 'books' I could see in his guest bedroom were anything to go by. Said cyclops was currently looking at the stack from a top down view, his eye patch currently in what Jiraiya called Byakugan mode, and what I called x-ray vision. When he gave a nod of approval I let out a groan of relief.

The bastard had the gall to smirk at me as he said "Alright kid, that's the letters and numbers set, take an hour break and we'll move onto the beginner's words set."

I could only let out another groan even as I stood up and began walking around the small apartment in order to get rid of the pins and needles feeling in my legs. Becoming a seal user better be worth it after this, otherwise I just might go Naruto and start pranking the hell out of my namesake.

Time Skip: Six Days Later

I take it back, I wasn't just going to prank Daisuke, somehow, someway, I was going to get the other three as well. My eye twitched as I took in the 'cute' outfit Kasumi had just finished wrestling me into while the other three were laughing their heads off. For some reason only she knew, my nonbirth mother had decided that when we went to the park today then I should be dressed in a shirt that had a purple and pink cat of all things splattered against its front and paw prints going down the legs of the shorts.

I let out a growl before I flared my chakra, using my basic Wind manipulation skills to shred the shirt to pieces. That got them all to stop laughing and they stared as I spat on the shredded remains before stalking back into my room to change into more appropriate clothes. I couldn't help the smirk on my face though when Tai said "Maybe you shouldn't have started him on Chakra Manipulation so soon Kasumi."

"Maybe, but did he have to shred the shirt? He looked so cute!" Kasumi whined.

"I strongly disagree _mother_!" I shouted back as I slipped off the shorts and took the chance to shred those as well before I quickly grabbed a much more sensible outfit of light green cargo shorts and a plain white shirt that had the Hidden Leaf Village symbol in its center. Walking back out, I said "What in the name of the Shodaime's wacky aunt made you think that was a good outfit for a boy?"

All four took a moment to mouth 'wacky aunt?' in amusement before Kasumi pouted and said "Well I thought you'd look nice in it."

"Maybe if I was a girl, but I'm not, and I'd rather not have to be picked on the moment we get to the park." I said with crossed arms.

"But then you'd have plenty of reason to kick all of the bully's behinds." Tai said with a grin only to grab his head when Gina dope slapped him.

Frowning, the kunoichi said "Don't tell my son it's alright to attack civilians just because they call him names Tai."

Tai raised his hands in surrender and said "Alright, alright, I'll be good." Appeased, Gina gave a nod before she began scrutinizing me. Finding nothing wrong with how I was dressed, she made a lead the way motion and I quickly jogged over to the door of the apartment.

Scene Change: Children's Playground

The first thing I did when we reached the park was go for the swings. The tallest slide of the area caught my attention of course but given there was long line of twenty kids waiting to go on it and a free swing, at the end of the set even if purple (Not that I cared about what color something I sat on was, _wearing_ purple on the other hand), made my choice obvious. I eagerly hopped on the swing before I happened to glance to my side and had to do a double take. The kid currently swinging as high as he could reach had a very distinct shade of yellow hair. I quickly regained my senses though and began swinging as well. There was no point trying to talk to a kid when he was in the middle of swinging so hard, even if it would have been cool to befriend the future Yodaime so early on.

I spent the next five minutes matching the chibi-kage's swing height. The kid seemed to take it as a challenge if the way he kept glancing my way was anything to go by, not that I could blame him since the two of us were going much higher than the other kids. Couldn't exactly blame them for their restraint though since our chains were starting to go slack at the height of our swings. Deciding that I'd rather not deal with the jerking of the chain that would cause which experience had taught me would possibly make the swing start spinning, at the apex of my next swing, I rolled backwards off of it and did a single back flip before landing on the ground and rolling forward once to get well out of the swing's range. I only had time to look over my shoulder and start standing before I saw Minato release himself just over halfway through his own swing and land about five feet past me, skidding a little on the wood chips on the ground. The kid was staring at me in awe though as he said "That was so cool, how did you do that flip like that?!"

I gave a nonchalant shrug and said "Pretty easy after a year of being trained by my family." Holding out my hand, I said "Kinomoto Daisuke, my family likes to call me Davis though."

"Namikaze Minato, and no offense, but that's a weird nickname." Minato said as he shook my hand.

I gave another shrug and said "None taken, I like it though so I've never bothered asking them to change it. So since we're done on the swings, would you like to do anything else together?"

"Sure, you seem a lot more interesting than the other kids." Minato said with a grin before pointing at a jungle gym and said "Want to see who can reach the top first?"

I grinned at him and said "Sure, if you don't mind eating my dust."

Minato laughed and said "I think it's going to be the other way around." And with that as his parting shot he was off like a freaking bullet. I rolled my eyes at the 'unfair' advantage he just took, let him get ten feet in front of me before I poured chakra into my legs and shot past in a series of consecutive ninja leaps, easily overtaking him and quickly reaching the top. I grinned down at him from the top of the jungle gym when he reached the bottom and said "Don't try to outcheat a ninja kid."

Minato pouted as I dropped back down but it was replaced with a grin when I said "Want me to help you unlock your chakra?"

After his enthusiastic answer, I lead him over to a quieter spot and began explaining the method my family had used to teach me how to feel out my chakra system. We would wind up talking for over an hour as the curious chibi-daime asked me all sorts of questions before spending the rest of the day playing around on the playground until it was time to leave.

END

Author's Notes: Since only five people have so far voted on my poll, I'm just going to leave it up and check on it occasionally. For those curious, it's currently four for one shot, one for chapters.


	3. Chapter 3

3\. Heading For The Academy

Story Start: Kinomoto Apartment: One Month After Meeting Minato

I stuck my tongue out in concentration as I made one last brush stroke. I let out a slight sigh of relief as text appeared in bold in my eyesight: **Multiple Storage Seal Collection And Sorting Master Seal completed, save seal formula for repeated use? Y/N** Mentally selecting yes, I leaned back with another sigh and popped my back before glancing over at Minato whose hand was rapidly drawing out a storage seal making me pout at the reminder that _he_ hadn't had to have more than a week's worth of calligraphy lessons before he could get to actual sealing practice. Still, at least I didn't have to wait for him to play catchup before we could run a little experiment. Grabbing another piece of sealing paper, I quickly selected a connecting storage seal from my small library of saved seals and my hand automatically made quick but precise strokes on it and I kept my eyes down on it in order to not raise suspicions with Minato as I said "I hope this works."

"It should, or at least I don't see why having two chakras being used for the starting seals would make much of a difference." Minato said putting the last stroke on his seal before placing a brush on the storage seal which flashed once before the brush appeared on the collector seal. Minato gave a quick fist pump which turned into a whoop of success when I did the same test and it worked as well. We traded a pair of high fives, first right handed, then left, before we quickly grabbed the Collector seal and brought it over to a medium sized cabinet we had managed to convince my folks to buy. We carefully placed the seal in the cupboard then linked it to the seven other seals on it that we had already tested. That done, we gave all the whole collection another test before letting out cries of excitement as it all worked and traded high fives.

Daisuke watched from the couch where he had been supervising us as Minato pulled me into doing a happy dance with him. (He was five, it was excusable, for now.) Letting out a chuckle, he said "Well done you two, especially you Minato, you seem to have gotten the basics down rather quickly. If you don't make Journeyman within ten years than I'll eat my eyepatch."

Minato rubbed the back of his head with a grin as he said "Thanks Daisuke-sensei."

I smirked and said "Journeyman in ten, world conquerors in thirty eh?"

"No world domination schemes until you're a jounin young man." Gina called from where she was cooking in the kitchen causing me to mock pout while Kasumi cackled from where she was setting the table. Even Tai let out a single chuckle at that while Daisuke merely rolled his eye before he said "Alright brats, enough fantasizing, time for the next part of your lesson."

"Yes sensei." We chimed as we came back to the table and Daisuke began discussing how many seals we could connect to our latest creation and why it was that number.

Time Skip: Two Months Later, Training Ground

I quickly blocked a punch before sending a kick at my opponent. Minato grabbed my foot and tried to pull me off balance only for me to place my other one around his bent knee as I did a back flip that yanked him off his feet and toward the edge of the sparring circle. Minato did a break dance-esk move on his hands that kept him from ringing out before he came back at me with a spinning kick that I had to roll away from if I didn't want my bell rung. Minato landed and spun to slam a punch at me but froze when Tai said "Time!" The two of us dropped out of our stances and gave each other bows before we turned to our current 'baby sitter'. Gina and Kasumi both had missions this week so Tai and Daisuke were watching over me, and thus Minato who sometimes seemed to only return to the orphanage to sleep, not that the ladies there minded.

Tai studied us for a moment before he nodded and said "Good job you two, now it's time we move from individual work to team work. Hold your wrists out please."

Minato and I traded confused looks but did as told. Tai tied my right wrist to Minato's left and then put a pair of goggles on each of our heads as he said with a grin "Alright kids, your task today is to get through my low level trap field without setting off ten traps."

I rather quickly paled at that but Minato cocked his head and said "Shouldn't that be without setting off any traps sir?"

Tai's grin took on demonic properties as he said "You're still a year or two of constant trap making and evasion practice away from being able to do THAT kid."

"And he does mean CONSTANT." I whimpered.

Minato though just seemed to take our words as a challenge and lead the way to the trap field Tai had set up with our smaller bodies in mind. Not even five careful steps in though, the blond triggered a paint mine that covered his entire body and most of mine. Tai howled with laughter as the two of us sputtered and wiped the paint away from our goggles. I gave a defeatist sigh and said "This is going to be a long day."

I was right. By the time we called it quits at sundown, we had managed to only trigger TWENTY traps, out of a hundred. I wasn't sure if we would ever be able to wash off all of the paint, either on our bodies or on our clothes. And Tai was still snickering when I entered the bathroom to shower, the smug bastard.

Time Skip: The Next Week

With Kasumi's return from her mission came a cessation of Tai's 'training', at least temporarily. The blue hair dyed woman currently had me and Minato sitting on a picnic table with a box that had wooden floor and walls and a glass case for a top secured by seals. The sides of the box were open, said box just big enough for us to put both of our hands side by side but an adult could only put one over and inside was a rubber ball that fit if not snugly then rather well between the walls and two black lines near its center, lines of holes drilled into the glass over said lines.

Kasumi studied us for a moment before she said "The two of you have gotten to the point of using the Gale Palm Jutsu that you can now do so seal less. And while that's all good, being able to get a jutsu off seal-lessly won't do you much good if you can't control the power output. So, you two are going to be working together in order to keep this ball in between the lines. Once you have it staying in place for ten seconds we will either raise or lower your output, any questions?" When she saw that we had none, she said "Then you two may begin."

Minato and I both took a deep breath before we put our hands in. In my mind's eye, an icon with the word Nin in it flashed once before a drop down list of the jutsu I currently knew how to use appeared before the selector rapidly went to **Wind Style: Gale Palm: Mastered** and 'double clicked' as it were. The jutsu came easily as it flowed out of my palms and soon Minato and I were doing the tricky work of trying to equalize our wind outputs in order to keep the ball in position. It was going to be a long day.

Time Skip: Day Of Starting The Academy

Minato stood next to me with my family standing behind us. Gina and Kasumi both had a proud hand on my shoulders while Tai had a hand on Minato's head while the two of us looked around. As we waited for the welcome speech from the Hokage, Minato said "So is this everything you thought it would be Davis?"

"Yeep." I said trailing the e a little before I continued "A lot of little boys and girls with visions of grandeur picturing themselves rescuing kidnapped royalty, saving countries, and being bad asses while kicking the crap out of other bad asses, all the while not realizing how dang hard they're going to have to work and how boring shinobi life usually is during peace times."

Tai let out a snort at that before he said "Just remember you two, work hard and always have each other's backs and you'll be just fine."

We nodded at that and a few minutes later, the crowd of parents and soon to be students quieted down as the Third Hokage walked up to a raised podium in front of the doors. I took in the man and thought to myself 'Damn, that guy does not age well.' The man shown before me looked like he was still in his thirties rather than his early fifties, and he had very few of the wrinkles and liver spots of the man first shown in the manga/anime. Clearly the stress of his job did this man's complexion no favors.

I shook that thought off though as the God of Shinobi welcomed parent and child alike and went on a spiel about how the children were entering a grand tradition and would protect and bring prosperity to the village, yada yada yada. Honestly, for a guy who had read not only the manga and seen the anime, but also read fanfics of a more, realistic nature, the Hokage's speech more came off as someone who was selling a five-year-old car disguised as a one-year old car. It still worked _great_ but it just wasn't as grand as the buyer once thought. I tried to keep that particular thought from my mind though. I knew what I was getting into when I chose a Naruto game file for my first reincarnated life, I didn't have a right to be cynical just because I actually knew the leader was doing a bit of indoctrination.

Soon enough, the speech was done and it was time for the parents to bring their kids to the classrooms where their first year would be taught, and where they could talk with the teacher that would be doing said teaching. As we moved forward I couldn't help but think 'Looks like it's time for the tutorial phase of the game.'

END

Update schedule is on my profile guys, if you want to know what's next, just look at what is first on my story links then go down one on the chain.

Author's Notes: Ugh, this is at least two hundred words shorter than I'd like, but that's the way some things are I guess. I didn't want to just jump into the academy after meeting Minato, that would be at least nine months, closer to a year time skip. I didn't want to get too far into the academy either though so this is what we're left with. Don't worry too much though, after all, Kushina comes in next chapter and she's sure to be good for some drama. Till next time, TTFN Ta Ta For Now!


	4. Chapter 4

4\. Meeting The Eddy

Review Answering: Real quick I want to answer this since the person who left this didn't give me a chance to.

king gilgamesh chapter 3 . Dec 25, 2017

its kinda boring iven the fact I hate when SIs bow their heads to cast characters. Minato is literally better than you at everything and yet you have pseudo gamer advantages

Response: Okay, just how am I bowing my head to Minato? The only thing the guy is better at in the last chapter is sealing arts and that's because he's a certified genius in the arts. Everything else is just me being a good friend. I CAN be a friend with the cast right? RIGHT?

Story Start: Hidden Leaf Academy: One Year In

So, interesting fact about the academy, unlike the manga and the anime which was, to be blunt, made to entertain children at first, we DIDN'T only get six years and then become preteen killers for hire. No, Gennin graduation outside times of war was actually eighteen, and war time early graduation occurred only if the student was DAMN good too. It certainly made sense to me, after all, how was a brat who hadn't even hit puberty supposed to stack up to adult enemies who had not only the reach and strength advantages but were most likely also a lot more experienced at what they did?

There was also the fact that on top of the beginner 'shinobi only' classes we also had to do what I considered 'standard education' classes which included reading, writing, basic maths, basic sciences, and a bit of basic geography. All of that coupled with the running laps and a beginner's obstacle course to start building up stamina and doing the katas for the Academy style taijutsu meant we had _long_ days. More often than not some of my classmates would take a nap during the one hour lunch break and two fifteen minute breaks we were given. I'll admit to needing a nap every once in a while myself, my currently kid aged body not quite up to the task of always staying awake for long hours doing what I considered grudge work. It probably wouldn't have been so bad if my teachers hadn't given us all evaluation tests on the first day and given those of us with 'early' teaching more advanced workbooks. As rusty as my math and science skills were I could still work through long multiplication and division and I still remembered most of my high school grade science knowledge so I wound up with the higher years during those classes. Thankfully, the fact that I had a non clan shinobi family meant that they just assumed that my family had noted my 'slightly above average' intelligence and worked me to the bone on my academics along with basic shinobi skills. The only good thing was that once I had finished all of the academy's math and science courses then I would have free slots to have as either independent study time or take a few more elective courses. And then there was Minato.

I had my school years from my previous life as an excuse, the only thing I could think of to explain Minato was that his grey matter had been surgically replaced with a sponge before I met him. I had already known that he had been a natural born seal prodigy that would make some people wonder why he had blond hair rather than red, but I hadn't made the connection between his supposed 'genius' level intellect with learning math and science. He wasn't as advanced as I was, in fact, he started with most of the other students, but he was _rapidly_ pulling ahead of them due to constantly reading ahead during lunch time.

It was during our fifteen minute 'home room' class where the teacher gave us all of the relevant announcements for the day and some of the more procrastination inclined students quickly finished whatever homework they were assigned in the morning classes that an event I had been waiting for ever since Minato and I had entered the academy happened. After the first bell rang our homeroom teacher (and also our geography teacher) looked up from his paperwork and said "Alright class, we have a new student transferring from our allies in the Land of Whirlpools, so I want you to make her feel welcome." Turning to the door, he said "Come in and introduce yourself young lady."

As soon as the Uzumaki walked through that door, I found myself blinking and thought 'How in the world is that shade of red natural?' I should probably explain that thought. I had seen plenty of people with red hair back in my old life, and I've even seen one or two around the village. But the only time I had seen or read about a shade or red _that_ bright was in story books. Not even the movie verse Weasley's had hair that red.

I shook that thought from my head though as Kushina clasped her hands in front of her and gave the customary short bow as she said "The name's Kushina Uzumaki, please take care of me."

There was the customary muttering of students talking about the new kid, some of them a bit rude in my opinion even as our teacher gestured up to the seats and said "Alright, miss Uzumaki, please take a seat so we can move on."

Kushina nodded and quickly scanned the seats before she spotted the empty spot two rows in front of me from where me and Minato were sitting in the back and quickly went for the seat. With that little interruption to his routine out of the way, the teacher quickly began giving the rest of his announcements.

It was during lunch when the trouble I had been half expecting started. A bunch of our classmates had surrounded Kushina and were making fun of her hair and currently slightly chubby face. (We WERE still kids after all, there was still a bit of baby fat in all of us) Soon as I saw one of the kids begin pulling her hair saying how he hated tomatoes and it was time to start harvesting her, I shot up the stairs and put the kid in a head lock, and not the nice kind either, this was straight up half strangling the kid as I snarled out "How about I harvest _you_ , you bigoted xenophobic?" Was it likely they knew what both of those words meant? Nope, but I didn't care.

"Hey, let him go!" One of the other bullies shouted and made towards me only to cry out in pain as Minato was suddenly there putting the kid in a painful arm lock. The two of us glared at the other two boys who suddenly looked a lot less eager to partake in violence and I snarled at them "Get lost!"

The two bolted like they had Jounin on their asses and were quickly out of the room. Glancing down at my captive who was desperately scrabbling at my arm with both hands, I let out a sneer of contempt and shoved him away from me and onto the ground as I said in as menacing tone as I could manage "If I catch you doing that again I'll start breaking bones, am I clear?"

"Clear!" The kid squeaked out before he scrabbled to his feet and took off, Minato shoving his own captive after him. With the pests gone, Minato turned back towards Kushina and said "Are you alright Uzumaki?"

Kushina's cheeks dusted pink even as she let out a harrumph and said "I could have handled them myself you know."

"Yeah, but you shouldn't have to, especially for something as asinine as your hair color." I pointed out.

"Asinine?" Kushina asked as she tilted her head in confusion at the unfamiliar word.

Minato rolled his eyes and said "Excuse Davis, he has a tendency to imitate a dictionary more than a human being, he means idiotic."

"Oh." Kushina said blinking while giving me a quizzical look before shaking her head and setting her face into a look of determination as she said "But anyway, like I said, I could have handled them. After all, a Hokage doesn't need others swooping in to help them."

I mentally snorted at that statement but kept my silence on the matter as Minato cocked his head and said "You intend to become Hokage?" At Kushina's determined nod, he sighed and said "I'm afraid that's impossible."

Kushina's determination turned to anger as she grabbed Minato's collar and jerked him close as she snarled out "Why, because I'm an Outsider?!"

Minato remained calm and collected as he said "No, because I intend to be Hokage, and there can only be one at a time."

The sheer sense of _fact_ as Minato said that had Kushina's anger rapidly turning into confused awe and her fists slackened before dropping to her sides. I on the other hand snorted bringing both of their attention to me as I said "Besides, you shouldn't say such things so lightly Little Eddy."

"What did you call me?" Kushina asked incredulously.

"Little Eddy. Your last name does mean whirlpool after all." I said with a shrug before I grew serious and said "And as for your declaration, learn what being Hokage means before you start making such claims."

Rallying at the perceived insult against her, Kushina puffed out her cheeks as she said "And I assume _you_ know what it means?!"

My eyes sharpened causing Kushina to unconsciously shift her right foot back a little as I said "I'm going to tell you the same thing I told Minato when he first told me he wanted to become Hokage. Being Hokage isn't just about being recognized as the strongest shinobi or kunoichi of the village, and it's not something you do for recognition either. You have to care for this village more than anything, because you must _always_ put the village first. And that doesn't just mean working long into the night on your child's birthday Kushina. If you become Hokage, then some of the people under your command WILL die, and you will have been the one to have sent them on the mission that killed them, but you will have to do it anyway for the good of the Village. Do you believe you could live with the knowledge that the shinobi under your command, people who essentially become your spiritual children, died due to you sending them on perilous missions? If not, then I suggest you find another goal to pursue."

"I-" Kushina opened her mouth before closing it and looking away with a troubled look, not that I could blame her. She was still a child after all, her age not even counted in the double digits yet, and what I had said would weigh heavily even on an adult. But it NEEDED to be said. So much of the shinobi lifestyle was romanticized, even among shinobi born children, but the fact remained, this world was filled with danger, and not just from rogue S-Class ninja looking to bring all of the Tailed Beasts together. That might of sounded a bit hypocritical of me given that this world had been my first choice to reincarnate into, but then again, I still wasn't even sure if this wasn't just fantasy my mind was going through while I laid in a hospital bed completely dead to my actual surroundings, though that certainly wouldn't stop me from doing my best to become as much a juggernaut on the field of battle as the two in front of me would wind up being. And if some of the ideas I had for when I got my sealing skills up to match were any indication then the Leaf's enemies better hope that they were never in my sights.

I shook those thoughts from my mind though when Kushina looked back at me with a slightly bit lip and said "Excuse me, you've given me a lot to think about."

As she walked away from us with head bent in thought, Minato looked at me with a raised eyebrow and asked in amusement "Little Eddy? Ah, does someone have a crush?"

I gave him a flat look and said "Minato, I would like to remind you that my biological father is a trap specialist and I know both where he keeps his pranking materials and where you live. Kindly keep such asinine thoughts to yourself unless you want to wind up hanging from a flagpole by your ankle with your hair green, your clothes tie-dyed, and itching powder all over you."

Minato's only response was to chuckle as he followed me out of the classroom to the picnic tables where we would eat our lunch. Still, in the privacy of my mind, I admitted he wasn't _entirely_ wrong. Kushina WAS once of my favorite anime characters after all. That didn't mean I was going to get romantically involved with her, oh Primus no! Not only was she definitely MINATO'S girl, even if he didn't know it yet, but I was NOT going to marry someone who so easily resembled the Tailed Beast they carried inside of them when they got angry. I was an adventure junky, not suicidal, thank you very much!

END

Author's Notes: Schedule and Poll are up on profile, and I strongly suggest you look since I have a new update schedule.

This would have been out roughly four days ago but my immediate family had a reunion at my dad's house. And since that was in Florida, that meant trips to Disney and Universal. (Not to mention he hasn't bothered to get WiFi at his new house yet. Ah cell phones with WiFi built in, you make us so lazy.) Moving on, Expect another time skip, this time showing Minato and Kushina's imitation of a dog and a rooster shoved into a sack together.


	5. Chapter 5

5\. Already Fighting Like A Married Couple

Story Start: Academy, Two And A Quarter Years In

I sighed as I once more heard bickering while walking towards the spot me and my friends had claimed as our spot to eat. Thanks to my advanced math class I got off for lunch ten minutes later than my friends and once again they had taken the chance my absence provided to go at it again.

About a week after our first encounter Kushina had tentatively joined our group. And while I could not believe that girl could do anything in a manner that even hinted at being shy, the fact remained that when she first asked if she could join us for lunch there had definitely been a hesitation and she had looked ready to accept that we would turn her away. Fortunately, Minato didn't seem to mind so now every day she joined us for lunch. _Unfortunately_ , those two's personalities didn't mesh well without me being there to soothe things over. It was not an exaggeration to say that Kushina was more my friend then Minato's at this point in time. Honestly, I couldn't count the number of times Minato responded to something she or I said and she'd fly off the handle as if he had just insulted every single member of her clan and then kicked her puppy in front of her for good measure.

Coming into sight of them, I narrowed my eyes as the sadly common sight of Kushina a little closer to Minato's face than was strictly polite and despite myself, I raised an eyebrow as I heard her say "You couldn't beat a two year old in taijutsu, never mind me!"

"I take it the teacher didn't let you spar last period?" I asked as I finished walking over, dragging Kushina away from Minato by the back of her shirt and dropping her by her barely touched lunch.

"That's right, though Kushina seems to think that I only won my match due to a cheap shot." Minato said calmly before popping a strawberry into his mouth.

"You stepped on then did a twisting jump off his toes, you might as well have gone for a groin shot!" Kushina snarled out.

"What I did was well within the rules." Minato reposted calmly.

"Doesn't change the fact that it was a dirty move." Kushina growled.

Rolling my eyes, I said "Well you two please knock it off? I just finished a fifty question math exam and I don't need you adding to my current headache. Honestly, you argue so much like a married couple I keep looking for your rings."

Minato gained an amused glint in his eyes even as he gave me a slight frown at my quip. Kushina though went a rather interesting shade of red and she growled as she jabbed her finger at Minato and said "I wouldn't marry that guy if he was the last person on the planet!"

While Minato merely raised an eyebrow at her statement, my reaction was much more energetic. I threw my head back and howled with laughter. Kushina snapped her angry gaze at me and I swear, even with her currently short hair I saw nine strands beginning to form. Snarling, she grabbed my collar and dragged me close as she growled out "What's so funny?!"

Thinking quickly, I asked "Do you know how often that is said by one or both main characters of a romance story before they actually get hitched?" Gaining a just _slightly_ demented grin, I cackled and said "Oh, I think I'm starting to hear the wedding bells already."

The look of absolute horror and disgust on Kushina's face made me sorely wish pensieves from the Harry Potter universe was a thing here because I would have _loved_ to frame the image and hang it up on bedroom wall. Actually recoiling away while at the same time giving a full body shudder, Kushina clamped a hand over her mouth and said "I think I'm going to barf."

"Oh come now, I could be GREAT husband material." Minato, the, at this current point, certifiable maniac said suavely as he actually stood up, walked over to Kushina, and got into the standard on one knee stance and took Kushina's free hand and said "Kushina, my love, fire of my life, would you do me the greatest honor of marrying me?" You would have actually thought he was sincere if you only heard the tone of his voice and didn't know he wasn't even ten yet. But then you would see the pure unrestrained mischief in his eyes and wouldn't be able to help but cackle. I know I sure couldn't, howling with even more laughter at the sight.

Kushina though suddenly went from disgusted to outright furious. Snarling, she shouted "You never mock that event, DIE NAMIKAZE!" She tackled Minato from point blank range and tried to get her hands around Minato's neck and I _swore_ I heard the sound of a cat yowling at another as she did so. As Minato somehow managed to keep Kushina from strangling him while laughing, I sighed and said " _Annnd_ there they go again."

Stomping over, I grabbed the back of Kushina's shirt collar and yanked her off of Minato before putting her in an armlock with the ease of far too much practice. As Kushina struggled in my grip, I said " _Enough_ Kushina, if you don't settle down then I'm going to tell Lady Mito that you need more meditation practice."

Kushina stilled so fast I briefly thought there was a cockatrice in the area. Her head turned woodenly around and she gave me a look that mixed both anger and fear as she said "You wouldn't."

"Ooooh, yes I would. And you know she would actually listen to me if I told her how you were acting just now since the person you were just trying to strangle was Minato. And Minato, quite purposefully antagonizing her, you do enough of that unintentionally." Minato merely held his hands up in defense at my glare before moving back to his lunch.

Fun fact, the two Uzumakis in the village were a packaged deal. So when Mito learned that Kushina had made friends she had quickly had Kushina invite us over to the Senju compound. After the first meeting, it wasn't long before Minato and I were dragged into Kushina's lessons on the sealing arts, Daisuke-sensei sometimes coming along in order to have sealing debates with the woman whenever he wasn't on a mission and had the free time. As such, she was well aware that Minato and Kushina tended to rub off each other wrong. Outside of lessons which she reigned over like a stern but graceful ruler, she found it amusing, even if she took the mature route and tried to make them get along. Unfortunately for Kushina, Mito's favorite punishment was meditation, and she wasn't afraid to whack the person doing the meditation if they managed to fall asleep either. (I should know, she once did that to me when I had had an extremely late night the day before.)

Kushina went limp in my arms, but not before she gave off a huff that brought to mind a cartoon bull snorting steam out of their nostrils. I held onto her for another ten seconds just to be sure before I let go and she quickly stepped away and moved back to her lunch. Sighing to myself, I finally opened up my own lunch and began eating. There was blessed silence for a full five minutes as we ate before Minato finished his lunch and said "By the way Kushina, did you know that your sandal's been unstrapped for the past thirty minutes?"

I could only drop my head with a sigh as Kushina growled as she quickly restrapped the footwear before she began yelling at Minato again. God, it was going to be a long ten years. Was it wrong of me to wish that the kidnapping event happened _sooner_ rather than not at all?

END

Author's Notes: Update Schedule and Poll on my profile.

Major Time Skip coming up. We've seen how Minato and Kushina interact as cute little chibis, it's time we move this story up to the teenage years, maybe get to graduation in a chapter or two after that.


	6. Chapter 6

6\. Seal Work And Not So Heart To Heart Conversations

Story Start: Fourteen Years Old

Kushina and I were cackling like a pair of mad scientists. Always the more collected of us three, Minato wasn't cackling, but his grin was certainly wide. And why shouldn't we be happy? We just managed to get one of my crazier ideas to work.

 **Solar/Wind/Lightning Conversion Seal Complete, Save Seal Formula For Repeated Use? Y/N**

I mentally slammed a fist into the yes option like the guy on a game show who knew the answer to the very last question he needed to win a million bucks. I should probably back up and give a little bit of explanation right?

The three of us were currently stationed on the apartment roof. Standing in front of us was a ten foot tall twelve blade wind turbine. As the classification above stated, this little guy had seals that collected wind energy from the fan when it caught wind, solar energy from the sun when it was shining down on it (And even moonlight counted on that front), and electrical energy if this thing ever got struck by lightning. We'd have to move the turbine up to the top of the stair well entrance for that one, but that was an easy enough thing to do.

Where was all of this collected energy going to you might ask? Why through a converter seal that turned it into chakra and then into a set of **Chakra Battery Seals** of course. And once there, Me, Minato, and Kushina could use that stored energy for whatever we wanted. Power a suit of chakra armor that looked like it came straight out of Halo? _Sure._ Wanna power a barrier that could cover the entire village to protect it from a falling meteor? No problem! Want to have a squadron of fighter planes to bomb those dirty mud eating Stone ninja out of existence? Let's get our Ace Combat on! Put quite simply, with this system in place, if we could get the seal portion working, we could power it. Of course, we'll have to make a bigger model of the system, and probably a couple more once war time comes, but that was considered child's play compared to the THREE years it took the three of us to finally get this right. Seriously, it should not have been THAT hard to figure out how to 'wirelessly' send all of that chakra into another location.

Getting herself under control, Kushina glanced towards me and said "So what should we work on after school next?"

I gave one last cackle as I said "I'm thinking long range communications mixed with locational tracking seals housed in shinobi goggles."

"Ooh, that'll be fun, that way we can talk to each other when we're in separate detentions." Kushina said with a grin.

"You mean when _you're_ in detention." Minato pointed out with a raised eyebrow and an amused twitch of his lips.

Kushina whirled around with a scowl and said " _Excuse me_?! Remind me again whose idea it was to put that AB foam trap in Adino Sensei's desk drawer two years ago!"

I gave a sigh of fond exasperation as the two once more went at it. Seriously, give the two a sealing project and they worked together as well as Adam and Jamie from Mythbusters, but 'off duty' they fought like Bugs and Daffy. I'll give you two guesses who plays who on that last one, though if you need more than one I'll be highly disappointed with you.

Shaking my head, I looked back at the wind turbine and thought to myself "It's too bad we're not near the ocean, we could have made a naval component as well. Oh well." Shrugging to myself, I did the now routine motions of getting Kushina to stop arguing with Minato and got them to help me set the turbine at the highest place on the roof before I lead the way back to the apartment, the three of us devolving into talking shop about our new project as we went down the stairs.

Time Skip: Two Months Later, Village Main Gates Wednesday

My parents had a rare mission together this week, bandit removal mixed in with a little bit of Hunter Nin work given how the group was rumored to be led by a missing Leaf Nin. Which made them the perfect choice for testing our finished project before we approach the Hokage about selling the product to the village. Minato, Kushina, and I were wearing the prototypes, housed in clear versions of the goggles that Obito Uchiha would wear, but we had never been out of the village where the 'brain' of the communications seal was stored and so didn't know if the system had a max range from home base where it would stop working. So Tai, Gina, and Kasumi would be taking the finished project out in order to see if there was a range close to the village limits. The communications and tracking functions wouldn't do much good if they stopped working ten miles from the village walls after all. The masks they were wearing were polarized in order to offer protection from harsh light along with the offered communications. We would have used them for the prototypes but after the second time we had messed up the seals we went for the much cheaper option of 'cheap' goggles until we could get them down pat.

Tai finished tightening the strap on his mask and tapped the side a little to further settle it before he gave me a thumb's up and said "Thanks for the new toy kid, don't worry, we'll put it through its paces."

"Make sure you do Tai, being able to send information from the border to the village or even further instantaneously would be rather helpful." Daisuke said from where he was standing next to me and my friends. Daisuke had his own mask and would be watching as his former students ran their mission, since it was unfortunately still only halfway through the week and so we still had the Academy to attend.

Tai nodded his agreement and he, Gina, and Kasumi gave their farewells before they took off out of the gate at a leisurely for Jonin speed. Soon as they were out of sight, Daisuke said "Alright Davis, let's get you to the academy."

"Right." I said with a nod and we leapt up onto the rooftops and took off in the direction of the Academy.

Time Skip: Two Days Later

"Whose bright idea was it that it would be acceptable to make Academy Students spend a perfectly good weekend camping and then literally go right back to the Academy on Monday?!" Kushina hissed.

I chuckled even as I was secretly impressed with her restraint. She had waited a full two hours since we had set up our tents in one of the furthest training fields to ask that question today after all. (The first time had been yesterday when the teacher announced said camping trip and told us to pack accordingly.)

"Could be worse, they could have split us up and put one of us with Mame." Minato said and both me and Kushina shuddered at that. Akimichi Mame was aptly named, that boy sure did like his beans, like Mongo from Blazing Saddles like. Don't get me wrong, he was a great guy, but there was a reason why he had his own table for lunch, complete with name plate.

" _Moving on,_ " I said with a hard shake of my head before I turned back to Kushina and said "Look at it this way Kushina, the fact that they had us three camp together probably means that they are already planning on making us a team when we graduate in four years."

"Yeah, probably because Kushina scares everyone else too much." Minato said with a grin.

Kushina _slowly_ turned her head towards Minato and asked "Care to repeat that Namikaze?"

"Alright you two, knock it off. I am NOT going to be spending the whole weekend dealing with your arguing. Do keep in mind that I now carry around a couple of **Body Lock** seals and I'm not afraid to use them." I said holding said two seal tags and wagging them.

Kushina crossed her arms with a huff and said "He started it." With the last word given, she went inside her tent and zipped it shut.

Sighing, I turned to Minato and said "You've been pushing her buttons ever since she first joined us for lunch, can't you give it a rest for one day?"

Minato smiled and gave a helpless shrug as he said "I don't know why it's so fun to rile her up, but she makes it far too easy. And besides there's just something about her that makes her look so beautiful when she's angry."

I sighed at that and rolled my eyes as I said "Sage help me from teenaged hormones."

Minato raised an eyebrow and said "Don't act like you haven't caught yourself staring at her every once in a while either Davis."

I snorted and said "Minato, you'd have to be blind to not realize that Kushina is going to be a real beauty when she grows up, but I'm mature enough to avoid the 'hair pulling' stage you've got going on. Besides, she's clearly out of my league." 'In more ways than one.' I thought to myself. Seriously, if I tried to make a move on Kushina and it actually worked, bye-bye Naruto and hello Infinite Tsukuyomi. I wasn't going to risk the fate of this world by being selfish like that.

"I _can_ still hear you two you know!" Kushina called from her tent. She tried to come off as cool and collected with that sentence, but I could practically hear the blush of embarrassment in her voice.

"I am aware of that fact, yes." Minato called back with a grin and I swear, you could _hear_ the resulting teeth grinding. I rolled my eyes but before I could say anything, Minato turned back to me and said "Don't sell yourself short Davis, you'll make for a great Other Half one day." His grin turned teasing and he added "You already have a few admirers yourself."

I snorted and said "Yeah, from the girls that think 'weird is cool'. They only look at me like that because of my heterochromia iridium."

"Not just them, the others just hide it from the guys better." Kushina called out of her tent. There was a pause before she snickered and said "Of course, most of the other girls seem to fantasize about you two boys making out _in front_ of them as much as you making out _with_ them."

"Ew." I said with a minor shudder, something Minato mirrored and Kushina's snickering turned into evil cackling. Sighing, I said "And I'll say it again: Sage help me from Teenaged Hormones."

"Amen to that brother." Minato said lowly under his breath before he shook his head and said "Anyway, I'm going to go catch us some dinner, the longer we can hold off from eating MREs, the better."

"You think a rabbit's stupid enough to live in an area Shinobi regularly use as a training field?" I asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Probably not," Minato admitted even as he began walking into the woods and threw over his shoulder "But fish on the other hand probably aren't that smart, and there is a stream nearby."

"Fair enough. I'll get a fire going." I said, collecting the twigs around our campsite for kindling and breaking off a few dead branches. As I set up the fire in a way that would make the least amount of smoke, I heard Kushina's tent unzip and her walk over to sit in her camp chair with a sigh.

As the first embers caught and began to spread, Kushina sighed again and said "I'm beginning to feel like a yo-yo Davis."

Her words brought to mind an NCIS short story I had once read but I shelved that thought as I asked "How so?"

"It's Minato. One minute he's this amazing Seal Crafter that I find myself immensely respecting for his ingenuity, and the next minute he's acting like a, a, oh what did you call it? Ah! He acts like a complete 'troll', riling me up just because he finds it funny! It's like I want to read over his shoulder at his notes one moment then snap his neck the next!" Kushina said, eyes narrowed and fingers flexing irritably at the end.

'So not _quite_ like New Life 080617's drabble.' I thought to myself even as I cocked my head and said " _Only_ read his notes?"

"Oh, don't go there Davis, please." Kushina said. Reaching up to push her goggles up and rub her face with her hands, she continued "I'm pretty sure that even _if_ I felt about him that way, which I don't mind you, I couldn't ever be in a relationship with Minato, he'd wind up six feet under after our first date."

"Sad, but true." I said with a slight smile. And it WAS true, without the little 'Rescue the Princess' event and Minato learning to grow up a little, and boy was that an ironic thought considering this was MINATO we were talking about, any relationship those two tried without me serving as a buffer would most likely self-destruct rather fantastically. _Still_ wasn't going to make a move though. I had no interest in being stuck in a Shinobi-style Matrix, thank you very much!

Kushina let out a soft 'heh' and a small smile of her own before she leaned back in her chair and said "I will give Minato and you this, you two have never said anything about my hair, even as a joke."

I shrugged and said "Hair's hair, unless someone goes at it with garden shears rather than hair scissors or dyes it with polka dots, there's really nothing there to insult about it." An image of Karin Uzumaki appeared briefly in my mind, though it left just as quickly. Kushina let out a hum at that but didn't say anything, and we slipped into a comfortable silence as we waited for Minato to get back with dinner.

END

Well, I WAS planning on doing something else this chapter, but then the reason why the Cloud nin ambushed the team out in the wilderness turned into that little bit of reality tv up there. I'll get to Kushina's abduction and Daisuke's resulting badassery next chapter, I promise.

Anyway, you guys (and girls) know the drill by now: Update Schedule and Poll are on my Profile, and if any of you are interested in doing a TVTropes for any of my stories let me know. Ciao!


	7. Chapter 7

7\. Ambush And Rescue

Story Start: Training Field Camp Site

It was probably only the fact that this potential future team was composed of future sealers that kept me and Minato alive the night following my discussions with him and Kushina. Minato had taken second watch after Kushina, and was in fact ten minutes from waking me up for my own shift when he felt three chakra signatures cross the outmost seal barrier. Using the message functions of our goggles, he managed to wake us just as the enemy hit the second barrier which unlike its brother was NOT permeable. The enemy was not to be denied though.

Kushina and I came out of our tents just as there was a loud thunderclap and light briefly replaced night sky as they tried to take down the barrier with a Lightning jutsu. Cursing mentally to myself at how Kushina's kidnapping attempt was happening now rather than after we graduated, I fired off my own message with the googles. Daisuke-sensei luckily was quick to answer though he looked like he had just woken up as he asked "Davis, what is it?"

"We're under attack Sensei, someone just tried to take out our barrier with a lightning jutsu." I said before wincing as an even louder thundercrack sounded out in the woods.

Daisuke-sensei snapped into full wakefulness as he said "I'm on my way, will your barrier hold?"

"Not for long. It's coupled to the **Chakra Battery Seal** that is powered by the turbine but it hasn't had very long to store chakra." I said as a third lightning strike hit home and there was the sound of shattering glass as the barrier failed. Wincing, I said "Strike that, they're through now, hurry."

There was no more time to say anything else, in an instant the three Lightning shinobi were upon us, swords out and streaming with lightning in an attempt to further blind us. Unfortunately, all that did was tell Minato and me where the overconfident enemies were coming from and we blasted their position with a combined Gale Palm jutsu, shorting out their swords and hurling the three nin back to slam against trees. Kushina fired off a star flare to provide us light even as her chains lashed out securing the three nin to their tree trunks. That backfired though as all three of them sent their lightning chakra down the chains shocking her and Kushina yelped as her chains dissipated, the redhead falling to the ground twitching as she tried to combat the foreign charges in her body, made worse by the fact that she was actually primarily a Water type.

'Crap!' I thought, mentally cursing the fact that Kushina had gotten so good with those chains that it was pretty much instinct for her to use them first. Minato and I quickly put ourselves between Kushina and the three Cloud nin as Minato asked "What are they doing here? They could have easily slipped around us undetected but instead they assaulted _our_ position."

I cut loose with a Wind Senbon jutsu that forced the shinobi to duck behind the trees they had been slammed into even as I said "They're after Kushina."

"How do _you_ know that?!" Minato asked even as he sent his own wind jutsu to smash into the weakened trunks forcing them to topple over, three blurs taking to the treetops showing that the three Cloud nin had gotten out of the way in time.

"She's a _female_ Uzumaki, with all that implies, while we're clan-less, do the math." I grunted as I unsealed what _looked_ like a regional version of a simple flare gun from a storage seal on my right palm. When I pulled the string attached to the long tube though what came out wasn't a simple flare, but a flare with three D-class explosive seals attached to it. As planned, by the time it reached the tree where one of the nin had fled, the flare had burned the attached fuses and the tree briefly disappeared in a fire ball, a loud crashing sound following as the top half of the tree fell down, the trunk destroyed.

A rather **ugly** look came upon Minato's face as he growled out "Over my dead body!"

"That's the plan brat!" One of the Cloud nin said before he used a Shunshin jutsu to appear right in front of Minato, right leg already out in a kick which connected with Minato's chest hurling him back. The man paid for getting close though as I slammed my left palm into the extended leg, a pocket of chakra forming then overloading in a fraction of a second which detonated in a small blue fireball. The shinobi yelled out in pain as chunk of skin and muscle the size of an egg was torn out of his leg then backhanded me away before I could grab Kushina and open the range again.

It was my turn to slam into a tree again and I couldn't help the 'Ooph!' that escaped me as the wind was blown out of my lungs. The cloud nin reached down to grab Kushina only for Minato to replace with her and he slammed a kick into the nin's groin. The man stiffened with a sound that sounded almost like a horse before he sunk to his knees.

But while Minato was dealing with that one, it left a still recovering Kushina undefended from the other two. I saw one of them dropping from the tree Kushina was now under, the girl still twitching. Scowling, I substituted with a near by stick that had fallen from that same tree sometime before the three of us had made camp here and tackled the man away from her. Even as we hit the ground, the man tried to paralyze me by streaming Lightning chakra into my body but I had already began streaming my own Wind chakra around me and the electricity fizzled out. We rolled a couple of times on the ground, the bigger enemy using his strength to get on top of me while I used my exploding chakra pocket to do the same, before the nin slammed a punch into the side of my head that threw me off of him and left me seeing stars. From my position on the ground, I could see the third Shinobi hoisting Kushina on his shoulder before blurring out of our camp site. Before I could even _think_ of going after him though my opponent took two steps forward than slammed his foot down on my face and darkness rapidly overcame me.

Time Skip: A Few Minutes Later

A rather strong smell in my nose had me groaning as I opened my eyes. Kneeling next to me was Daisuke-sensei, a stick of smelling salts in his hand. He had apparently moved Minato over to my side because he was already sitting up and rubbing at his own head, a rather nasty bruise beginning to form on his temple. Quickly sitting up, I said "Kushina, is she?"

Daisuke-sensei shook his head and said "She's not here. Unfortunately, your attackers bugged out just before I got here."

"Why'd they leave us alive? One of them _said_ that they planned to kill us." Minato asked.

"I had been watching the fight thanks to your goggles. When I saw both of you go down I flared my chakra. I was close enough at that time to spook them and they took off." Daisuke-sensei said, tapping his own set of goggles.

"Thanks for that, but we need to go after them." I said as I began to get up to my feet.

"No, _I_ need to go after them. You two just got your backsides whipped. I want you both to head back to the village to report what happened and get medical attention." Daisuke-sensei said firmly. He stood up and began moving to the closest tree, clearly intending to tree hop in order to make up for lost time.

"Sir, with all due respect, I can't do that." Minato said, also getting to his feet and causing Daisuke-sensei to pause before he leapt up. Pushing the polarized goggles up to his forehead so that way we could see the stern stare of his hawk like single eye on his face as he looked over his shoulder at us, Daisuke-sensei said "You want to say that again Academy Student?"

Minato winced at the reminder that he wasn't even a Gennin yet but firmed his stance as he said "Kushina is our friend sir, and Davis and I both aren't the types to just stand back while she's in trouble. Even if you left without us, we'd just follow anyway."

"Is that so?" Daisuke-sensei asked, turning back towards us with crossed arms. Glancing at me, he continued "Davis, do you feel the same?"

I gave a deep sigh and said "My logical mind is saying to follow your orders sensei, but the emotional part is currently pulling it into a back alley to try and beat it to death."

Daisuke-sensei gave a wry chuckle and shook his head as he said "You always did like your metaphors kid." A moment later, he sighed and said "I could, and _should_ have a shadow clone make sure you stay, but even that might not be enough. Alright, you two can come with me, but you will do exactly as I say, am I clear?"

He glared at us at the end and both Minato and I stiffened as we automatically gave hand to forehead salutes and said "Yes sir!"

Daisuke-sensei snorted at that before he created a shadow clone which immediately took off back into the village and said "Alright, let's get going then. Going by Kushina's tracking seal, they're going at a fast run to open the distance as much as possible. Given what you did to one of their legs Daisuke, they are either going to have to stop for a break within the hour to treat it or have one of the others carry him slowing them down but that won't matter if we don't make up for lost time."

"Right." Minato and I said with nods and we quickly followed Daisuke-sensei up into the trees, using the branches to cover more ground for less effort than we would have by running along the ground.

Around forty minutes later we were almost on top of them. Attempts to contact Kushina had failed, her voice muffled and unintelligible, showing that she was gagged and also showing that we needed to add a mental component to the communication seals. That would come later though, since while Kushina couldn't speak, she could still turn her head showing that she was on the shoulder of one of the Cloud ninja bound along with a chakra suppressant seal on her right wrist while another was carrying the wounded nin piggy back, both mobile shinobi running like they had the Shinigami himself on their heels. Of course, with Daisuke-sensei, AKA Death's Hawk coming up behind them, that was a pretty close comparison.

His yellow eye narrowing, Daisuke-sensei said "I'll replace with Kushina and deal with these three punks, you two get her up to the tree tops and free. _Do not_ interfere."

"Hai sensei!" Minato and I said, Minato moving from the back left position of our triangle formation to behind Daisuke-sensei in preparation to catch Kushina and we hit the metaphorical after burners, quickly closing the remaining hundred yards. With their hands full, neither of the runners could do anything as we flew overhead and the carried nin didn't even get a chance to finish his hand signs before Daisuke-sensei replaced with Kushina and slammed his fist into his throat crushing it even as it knocked the nin off his buddy's back and onto the ground. Needless to say, the change in weight threw off the other carrying Cloud nin's balance and he tumbled to the ground, Daisuke-sensei easily rolling away backwards and coming up with his tonfa out and spinning, a savage grin on his face as he said "Nice night for a run isn't it?"

"Oh _fuck_ , it's Death's Hawk!" The Cloud nin who had been carrying his buddy said with panic filled eyes. That shinobi in turn was making grasping motions at his neck in desperation as he choked to death from Daisuke-sensei's blow.

Daisuke-sensei smirked and said "You spark heads really messed up, ambushing my three students like that. I'm afraid I'm going to have to teach you boys a lesson." There was an ominous SHINK sound from his tonfas as the hidden blades popped out and then he was among the two, a whirling dervish of bladed death.

Meanwhile, Minato and I were standing on the highest branch of a nearby tree that could take our weight. I removed Kushina's gag then started on her bindings, Minato easily carrying her as I worked. As I undid the rope around her, I asked "Kushina, are you feeling alright?"

Kushina nodded and said "I don't think they drugged me or anything." Blushing as she glanced from my face to Minato's she said "Thanks for coming after me guys."

Minato smirked down at her and said "We're not letting you get away from us that easily."

"Yeah, I'm afraid you're stuck with us, just like a roach checking into a motel." I said with a smirk.

Kushina slapped my shoulder with her now free hand even as she giggled and said "That's terrible Davis!"

A sudden scream of pain from below us broke up the mood and all three of us winced as we once more paid attention to the video feed provided by Daisuke-sensei's goggles. Looking a little green, Minato said "Geeze, I didn't even know you could _do_ that to a guy with his arm still attached."

"Apparently you can." I said, a little queasy myself.

 _That_ turned out to be the cloud nin's right hand shoved about an inch past the wrist up the unfortunate guy's ass, his shinobi pants and underwear apparently nowhere near enough to stop the gruesome sight from happening. The poor bastard was hopping around trying to get the two body parts separated while Daisuke-sensei took on the other nin tonfa to sword. The blades on his tonfa were chakra conductive and glowing white hot with fire chakra absolutely ruining the man's sword from all the times he had to block Daisuke-sensei's punishing swings. Even as we watched Daisuke sliced right through the sword just above the hilt and he Spartan kicked the suddenly wide open shinobi into the trunk of the tree we were in so hard we actually felt the whole tree shudder from the impact, more than a few leaves shaken loose and floating down to the ground.

Immediately locking onto the 'grievously wounded' nin, Daisuke's tonfas popped back into their storage seals as his hands blitzed through hand signs and we heard him shout out "Water Style: Hidden Geyser Jutsu!" There was the sound of a foot stomping the ground and then a blast of water shot up under the Cloud nin's feet and blasted him up into the air so high the three of us actually had to lift our heads as he passed us to keep him in sight. Just as he began to fall back to earth, Daisuke replaced with him, rapidly went through another set of hand signs and called out "Lightning Style: Heaven's Wrath Jutsu!"

A massive bolt of lightning lanced down and the thoroughly soaked nin screamed in agony for a moment before abruptly falling silent. Daisuke dropped down to the ground next to him as easily as hopping down from the last two steps of a set of stairs, leaning down and checking the nin's pulse, nodding at what he found.

" _ **DAMN!**_ " Minato, Kushina, and I all said together, eyes wide at how brutally, and more importantly, _rapidly_ Daisuke-sensei had taken down the three shinobi that had given us so much trouble. All three of us jerked a little as said Jounin said over our coms seals "Alright you three, you can come down now."

Minato and I dropped down to the ground, Minato finally setting Kushina back onto her feet even as he said "I am suddenly **very** glad that you are a Leaf nin sensei."

"Ditto." Kushina and I said together causing Daisuke-sensei to chuckle.

Pointing past us to the nin who he had slammed into our tree, Daisuke-sensei said "Get that guy into a stasis seal Davis. I think the boys in T&I would like to have a word with him. I'll deal with these other two."

"Right." I said with a nod, turning around and quickly unsealing sealing ink and paper along with a brush to make said seal. When I was finished, I saw Daisuke-sensei putting two scrolls that had black borders on them into his Jounin vest pocket and the veteran clapped his hands as he said "Alright, we're done here, let's get back to the Village."

"Hai sensei." The three of us said and we quickly took back up to the trees, crisis averted. For now, anyway.

END

Author's Notes: Update Schedule and Poll on Profile

Sorry for the wait on this one, I had to scrap the first draft of the ambush scene because I thought three Academy students holding their own against full fledged shinobi for more than a minute if that was rather unbelievable. After that I got held up clearing my Deviant Art Notifications Cache. Work didn't help matters either but now I'm just making excuses.

Anyways, I hope I showed Daisuke-sensei in a good light. It's hard to write a badass mentor figure going to town on what amounts to mooks in a way that is both able to showcase their skills and be a believable fight scene. Still, let me know what you think about him.


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